Joel came over when we got back and stayed for dinner, which was Amma’s mac and cheese, which he ate so much of that he had to lean back and burp at one point, which made us all laugh. Amma says he’s a growing boy and is going to shoot up.
After dinner, we walked downtown and played pinball at the arcade and talked about art stuff, like how to do shading on living things, and what our favorite paint colors are （mine is alizarin crimson, his was a color I think is so ugly, yellow ocher）。
I wish you’d been with us. I could feel you like a ghost all night. I wish I knew how you were doing.
Love,
Phoebe
Sunday after Thanksgiving
Dear Suze,
I am so sorry I haven’t had time to write! ! ! ! My mom and dad came on Wednesday and we’ve been doing family things, even my mom, who seems weirdly happy. She got a promotion at work, with a lot more money, and she always likes making more money. We ate like pigs and played a million games （I won Scrabble three times!） and hung out. Joel went somewhere with his mom, so I talked to him on the phone, but we didn’t get to go anywhere again.
I’m leaving the diary so you can read it and write in it, but PLEASE call me as soon as you can. Amma said you can use her phone and she’ll pay, no problem.
I MISS YOU SO MUCH! The good thing is, it’s only a month till Christmas vacation and I’ll see you then.
Love,
Phoebe
November 29, 19—
Dear Phoebe,
Joel told me he kissed you. I can’t believe you guys did that! Like I didn’t even exist. Like it didn’t matter that I was imprisoned in my room for the entire Thanksgiving vacation and no one even cares. You hung out with each other like I don’t even matter. I’m so so so so mad at you!!!!!
I’m not going to be in the play. My dad forced me to quit. I couldn’t stop crying when I told my teacher.
I’M SO MAD AT YOU!
Suze
[PAGE TORN OUT]
Dear Phoebe,
My dad imprisoned me for the whole week. It killed me that you and Joel hung out the whole time and painted and went to the beach and had fun and I was STUCK IN MY ROOM. I wanted to cut my hair but I was too scared, so I cut some ribbons in my skin, on my thigh, where my dad will never see them.
I hate my life. I hate my dad. I hate that I’m stuck here in this house for five more years until I’m 18. I wish I could run away like GO ASK ALICE, but I don’t know where I’d find some older guy to let me live with him.
I wanted to be in the play so bad, and now I can’t do it. I wanted to BE WITH YOU during Thanksgiving and now you’re back home and that makes my heart hurt SO BAD. I miss you. I wish you lived here.
[PAGE TORN OUT]
December 1, 19—
Dear Phoebe,
I am fine. Don’t worry. I’m glad you and Joel had fun. He told me he kissed you, which you might have said. I don’t know about this diary right now. I’ll try to call you, but I don’t know when.
Love,
Suze
CURRENT DAY
Chapter Eleven
Phoebe
After we drop Suze off at her house, Jasmine and I have rest time. Not that she likes it that much, but I’m attached to my naps. When I’m refreshed, we head down to the studio. I can tell she’s restless. Art is great for a couple of hours, but she and Maui are bouncing off the walls. Looking through the windows, I see that the rain has stopped. “Why don’t you go play outside?” I suggest, swishing a paintbrush in water.
“Finally!” She pulls on her hoodie and Maui jumps up, grabbing a stick he dragged inside earlier. Jasmine takes it. “Let’s play fetch,” she says and leans in. “That means I throw it, you bring it back, okay?”
I chuckle. “Don’t go too far.”
When they leave, I think about those words. If I yelled for her and she didn’t arrive within a minute or two, I’d be in a panic. So unlike the days when Suze and I tumbled through the forests and beaches all day without anyone worrying. We had bikes and rode them for miles on trails and beaches, around town and to explore places we would surely have been forbidden to visit, like the junkyard and a strip club down on the county road. A hole in one of the walls let us peek inside to the tired, dark interior, where women gyrated in a bored way. Still, it gave us a thrill to see naked breasts.
We also collected everything from shells to pine cones to snakeskins, and took them to the studio to paint and draw. Suze loved feathers, loved trying to capture the iridescence of the vanes, and she liked collecting rocks, too. My tastes ran to flowers, dandelions and roses, the dahlias in my grandmother’s farm fields—such a glory when they bloomed in July and August!—anything with petals.